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While no one earns the salvation of God, surely our Christian sisters have a sweet deal with Him in that after continuing faith in Christ, immortal glory is theirs for simply submitting to His will to be helpers to their husbands as child bearers in all love, holiness and self-control (1 Timothy 2:15). If they do nothing else in a lifetime, they have well pleased God in carrying out this assignment alone. But alas, faithful men and women in gratitude to, love and zeal for the Lord always want to do all that is possible in service to Him within the boundaries of His order and gifting to please Him as Tabitha and Phoebe in the New Testament demonstrate (Acts 9:36-41; Romans 16:1-2)!
Tragically, many contemporary professing Christian females in the sinful defiance of worldly feminists, selfish ambition and lack of self-control are out of divine order and disqualify their works however great in human eyes that might otherwise please God through pursuing authority over their husbands along with other adult men in His house. They in unbelief and disobedience impetuously act before the time God has prepared for all of His eternal sons as immortals to reign with Christ over every created thing and therefore, receive their reward now while bringing judgment on themselves with the men who enable their sin (Genesis 3:1-13, 16-19, 4:3-7; Numbers 12, 15:30-31; Matthew 6:1-4; John 14:15; 1 Timothy 2:8-14; Hebrews 10:26-31; Revelation 2:18-29).
This is part two of a three part celebratory treatise briefly exploring the resurrection to immortal glory first accomplished by the Father in His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, and promised also to His followers at His return to earth! While there is some repetition, for additional supporting content I recommend the reader refer to my May 2014, “The Body Beautiful”, Pt. 1 and 2 along with the more recent May 1, 2016 “Natural Bodies By Divine Design” posts under the same category as this and all the blogs that follow on the topic of immortality.1
Originally Published May 2013
The promise of immortal glory through faith in Jesus Christ is to say the least, mind-boggling but not inconceivable. Truly, who could imagine that all of the wonder and complexity of the human body could come from simple dust? Yet, here we are; eternal creatures made on purpose for God's purposes from dust (Genesis 1:26, 2:7)!
In outfitting man for this present mortal age, God created him a natural body from the earth from which it was taken; by divine decree that same body returns to the dust upon death because of sin (Genesis 3:17-19). Nevertheless, the natural body of man is a marvel of divine design and creation. For example, made in His image and likeness, the God who speaks, hears and sees, gave man a mouth to speak, ears to hear and eyes to see (Exodus 4:11; Psalm 94:9). As surely as men have come to learn that “form follows function” as a principle of building and industrial design, so, the Creator of man designed his natural body to fulfill functions tied to His will and purposes.
Keeping with the earlier example, it was the express divine will that man speak, see and hear in order to interact with God, the creation and soon to come, others of his kind (Genesis 2:8-19, 3:6-13)! Of course, God's image and likeness as well as purposes for mortal man designed in the functions of his natural body are much more than those three abilities. In chapter two of my book, The Strong Man Of God, Back To Basics, the Lord leads me to re-state plainly from His Word that Adam as the first and only man stood before Him a total, perfect creature. If it had not been for the divine will that man be many, Adam would have stood alone before God as the only man forever!
This means that a female version of man was not an imperative for him to exist. However, since along with ruling the divine mandate was for man to procreate, God chose the method to be cooperative effort by man as male and female (Genesis 1:27-28). Not back to the dust, but from man's side did God take living bone to purposely construct his female version; a "helper comparable to him" for him, which greatly pleased Adam (Genesis 2:20-23, NKJV)! Very important to emphasize in this is the fact that the female version of man is man for she was taken out of him and bears his glory in accord with the will and purposes of God in this mortal age (1 Corinthians 11:7-9).
Moreover, since every facet of man's inner person is masculine in the image and likeness of God, so equally is woman's. Truly, Adam prefigured Christ who is God in the flesh (John 1:1-5, 14-18; Romans 5:14; 1 Peter 1:17-21)! God sanctified the relationship of the man and his wife as marriage. Within it, they in their equality of person but complementary division of roles and responsibilities are put back and work together as "one flesh;" one whole man to His glory (Genesis 2:24, NKJV)! God perfectly divided the makeup of the man with his wife as seen in their respective dispositions influenced by and shown in their bodies. Thus, their gender differences are a matter of divine chosen emphasis "fleshed out" in each by form, genetics and hormones (Psalm 139:14).
The mortal lives and relationship of the man and his wife in their natural bodies became temporary as has already been stated because of sin and death. Sin corrupted their original perfection introducing conflict, pain, perversions and divorce. Their bodies reach a peak of maturity in function then decay sets in until apart from disease and calamity, death arrives (Psalm 90:1-12). The Bible is clear that death eternally severs the marital relationship (Romans 7:1-3; 1 Corinthians 7:39). Religious men tried to test the Lord using levirate marriage to discredit resurrection and Him if He endorsed it. The Lord first affirms marriage and procreation are for this mortal age only (Luke 20:27-35).
The Lord goes on to teach that the resurrected, immortal sons of God are "'equal to the angels,'" (Luke 20:36, NKJV). Being equal to the angels speaks not only to the reality that they do not die, but also to the function of their bodies (Psalm 104:4); by divine design they cannot procreate. For this reason, there are no angels that are female and none that will be human in the resurrection since femininity is a special construction of God tied to procreation. Our bodies will necessarily undergo change to fit their form to God's planned stage two functions ultimately in a new, eternal creation (2 Corinthians 5:14-17)! The risen, living Christ continues His cry among American churches, "Who is on the Lord's side?"
1 The Strong Man Store has available a four message audio CD series, Christ’s Resurrection, Death’s End the Lord led me to proclaim as another resource on the topic
of the coming resurrection to immortality.
Since God has purposely planned for His sons to inhabit eternity with Him to fulfill roles and purposes of His design, then this should be revealed in some measure in His Word as has been the case with His mortal plans. Truly, it is as Scripture teaches: faithful Christians on earth are now receiving a radical make over inwardly that will also thoroughly affect what bodies we have for eternity. This edited part one is the first of a three part previously published 2013 celebratory treatise briefly exploring the resurrection to immortal glory first accomplished by the Father in His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, and promised also to His followers at His return to earth!
Originally Published April 2013
Besides the creation of man by God, the permanent, bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is among the greatest displays of divine power in history! Coming on the third day after His death on the cross, His spirit that had departed returned to His lifeless body and it lived a second time; no more ever able to die. While He had previously displayed the divine power to raise others from the dead, they eventually died again. Jesus Christ, however, is the first and only Person until now to die, be raised to immortality and glorified after ascending to Heaven (Daniel 7:13-14; Luke 24:26, 50-51). He wills that all of His followers have His experience (John 6:40, 17:22).
As the Lord led me to write in a June 2012 Commentary titled, Man As God Designed Him, it was the divine intent that human mortality be only temporary. The possibility of immortality through the “tree of life” was already in the Garden of Eden when Adam was brought to it by God (Genesis 2:8-9, NKJV). All he had to do was eat from it which was not forbidden until after he sinned (Genesis 2:16-17; 3:22-24)! Clearly, mortality was the divine intended stage one of human existence to allow for death as the consequence for foreknown sin (Revelation 13:8). Truly, contrary to the consequential pain and grief it has caused us from Adam, physical death is an act of divine mercy!
He who foreknew Adam's fall and planned for it, also forever dismissed the prospect of his living forever to father children of sin when "the LORD God sent him out of the Garden of Eden," (Genesis 3:23, NKJV). Thus, the original divine directive to man as male and female to “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth” remained in effect as a mission of mortality in a temporary age of mortality dominated by death (Genesis 1:28, 3:16-19, 5:1-5, 8:20-9:1, NKJV). So used to the temporary routine of mortal life and death is mankind that many--including professing Christians--live hopelessly as though this is the eternally inevitable norm (Ecclesiastes 1:2-15, 2:1-24; Isaiah 22:13b, 56:12).
However, God who knows the end from the beginning permitted this routine of mortal life and death as part of His important plans for man and his salvation, for the Creator of man created him seeking eternal sons upon which to confer the inheritance of His eternal riches. Sin and death interrupted but did not finally thwart His plans. Therefore, God has been working during this mortal age to bring forth sons in the number of His will through Christ (Genesis 22:15-18; Romans 8:14-17; Galatians 3:7-29; Ephesians 2:4-7; Hebrews 2:10-16; Revelation 21:7). Indeed, He is the "firstborn from the dead" (Romans 8:29; Colossians 1:9-23; Revelation 1:4-8, NKJV).
The Lord's permanent, bodily resurrection from the dead was of monumental magnitude concerning immortality and opened a wide vista of consideration about it. While God did not reveal every detail about immortality and His future plans in His Word, there is enough information provided by the prophets, Christ and His apostles to keep us who believe joyfully thinking about it like dreamy eyed children lying in bed on Christmas Eve until the Lord returns. As with every other aspect of this eternal life we have in Christ, the redeemed sons of God are expected by Him to search out by the Holy Spirit the instruction in His Word related to our immortal future (1 Corinthians 2:9-12).
Authors down through the centuries and Hollywood more recently have either struggled to grasp or purposely took improper creative license with how Christ exited the tomb. The now false consensus that the stone was rolled away and he walked out in shining glory is popular, but not Scriptural. The New Testament accounts have folk arriving to find an empty tomb with angels in three of the four Gospels announcing the Lord's resurrection (Matthew 28:1-6; Mark 16:1-6; Luke 24:1-7; John 20:1-10). Why does this matter? It matters because the truth reveals that after His resurrection, the Lord stayed long enough to carefully fold a burial item, then in His immortal body, vanish from the sealed tomb as He did later seated amid disciples (Luke 24:30-31).
Clearly, the laws of physics, space or time did not limit the immortal body of the Lord as is powerfully seen too in His ascension into the spiritual dimension where Heaven is located above this present universe (Acts 1:9-11, 9:3-7; 2 Corinthians 12:1-4). Yet, in His immortal body, He could eat food and be touched (Luke 24:36-43; John 20:24-29). The resurrection of Jesus Christ into an immortal body matters because it is the eyewitness anchor of the Gospel that saves those that have believed and hope in His promise that we too shall be raised from the dead into immortal bodies (1 Corinthians 15:1-23, 29-34). The risen, living Christ continues His cry among American churches, "Who is on the Lord's side?"
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